Past Events/Projects:

The Black Art Incubator posits the idea of “residency” in the form of an IRL (in real life) incubator as an opportunity to continue to build and sustain public and community-driven practices around art and its existence in the wider world. The Black Art Incubator is organized and presented by Taylor Renee Aldridge, Jessica Bell Brown, Kimberly Drew, and Jessica Lynne.

This fall, ARTS.BLACK is taking up residence at The Luminary in St. Louis, MO, where we will organize our first pop-up exhibition, Empowerpoint. The exhibition aims to reflect the way humor is used by contemporary artists as a form of social critique, with a specific focus on new media and digital art, video, and social media channels such as Snapchat, instagram, and Vine.

The Detroit Narrative Agency aims to change the stories that form the future of this city. We are a group of Detroiters who understand that the DNA of of this city is made up of many stories, and who seek to shift the stories that are currently being told in and of Detroit towards justice.

After a year long process of developing the project, we are excited to begin cultivating moving image projects (film, video installation, emerging multimedia forms, etc) in and of Detroit. We will be selecting 8-15 projects to provide seed grants of $5,000 - $10,000, which artists and community members can use to shift the narratives of Detroit.

The Seed Grant application is now open! Apply here. The deadline to apply is June 24th.

The Curatorial Intensive, a weeklong professional development program, offers curators the opportunity to discuss, among colleagues, the concepts, logistics, and challenges of organizing exhibitions, public programs, and other curatorial models. It is designed to immerse a peer group of participants in a rigorous schedule of seminars and conversations, which support the process of developing an idea for an exhibition into a full proposal.

I will be participating as an Ideas City Fellow for the five day long immersive and collaborative studio laboratory in Detroit. Here, I'll be collaborating with a host of 'emerging cultural practitioners, duos and collectives working at the intersection of urbanism, art, design, community, and technology to create strategies designed for practical implementation.'

This panel will focus on access, resources, and privilege in the art world. A discussion about the ways in which black artists and arts administrators make use of public and private spaces to further conversations about equity. Some questions that will be explored: How are black artists responding to the particular concerns present in their respective geopolitical contexts? How does this manifest itself on a local level in the city in which you work/live? What do we mean when we say equity?

This session will engage local, national and international presenters in three panel conversations focused on the relationships between artists and those representing, presenting, publishing, and collecting their work.

Using their collective research practices as a framework, the members of the BlackArtsIncubator discuss where race, gender, class and geopolitics inform the architecture of the art world in order to re­-center these sectors. Featuring Kimberly Drew, Founder of Black Contemporary Art; Jessica Bell Brown, Art Historian; Moderated by Taylor Renee and Jessica Lynne, editors of ARTS.BLACK.

Arthas always mirrored the times in which it is created. Sometimes artworks canbecome prophetic artifacts, an indication of what’s to come. This panel willprovide a space for dialogue with esteemed artists rooted in both art andactivism. Speakers will address important contemporary social justiceefforts such as #BlackLivesMatter, and how art is situated at the forefront ofthese movements.

Since the beginning of the recession, and in the shadow of art's spectacular market ascendency, artist-centric action has again taken root as a dominant mode of working. In this session, artists and organizers of alternative media platforms will talk about modes of creating discourse and connecting communities. Investigating current examples and imagining future possibilities, we will ask:What are the implications of creating our own platforms—our own media, critical discourse, and opportunities for connection—rather than waiting for outside agents to do so for us? As we circulate as individuals and as ideas, what are we building? How can we not just imagine alternate modes of connection, but embody them?